


The Run and Go

by LittleSpacePrince



Series: Tale Teller's Daily Writing Challenge [22]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Flashbacks, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gay, Idk what to tag this as, Inspired by Music, Light Angst, M/M, Music, angst if you squint, they're stories within a story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-03-24 15:31:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13814109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleSpacePrince/pseuds/LittleSpacePrince
Summary: Prompt:Anthem.  Everyone has a song that is ‘their’ song.  What is your character’s and how did it become so?In which Bruce is on the run and go.





	The Run and Go

**Author's Note:**

> [The Run and Go by Twenty One Pilots](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bB99HA7fSWc)

_I can't take them on my own, my own_

He couldn’t keep doing this. Couldn’t keep waking up like this, couldn’t keep running, couldn’t keep hiding, couldn’t _live like this._ He lay in the cold, snow dusted over fevered flesh, naked and exposed, like a nerve. The whole world lay silent, and he wasn’t quite certain where he was anymore. All the pieces were scrambled and he couldn’t find where they started. Memories lay in fragments, and all he knew beyond the shadow of a doubt was what had landed him here. The beast forged from gamma rays, pulsing through his veins and waiting to strike again, had taken him over and left him here. Wherever here happened to be. 

It had been two months since the accident. Two months, three losses of control. Three times, the beast had erupted from his flesh and left him here, like this, waking up in a place he didn’t recognized, doomed to start again without anything. It wasn’t like he could just go home, wasn’t like he could return to the place he had been staying. All that he had was here, flat in the snow, naked and broken. There was no going back, and he couldn’t do this again. 

 

_Oh, I'm not the one you know, you know_

“No, no, stop.” Bruce whispered, pulling away from his lips. It was wrong, it was stupid, it would only end the same way. Love didn’t exactly work out for him anymore, and there was no point in even making the attempt at all. Tony Stark, billionaire playboy, used to hundreds of girls practically lining up for a one night stand, could never want him. Someone who couldn’t love him in the way they did. Someone who couldn’t be another easy fuck. Someone he couldn’t fuck to begin with. No, it was a bad idea. And one tipsy kiss didn’t mean anything. It meant nothing. It couldn’t mean anything. He couldn’t let it mean anything. “It’s a bad idea. You don’t want me, Tony. I’m not… I can’t… It’s… It’s not a good idea.” 

“Well, lucky for you, Banner.” Tony mused, fingers slipping into the belt loops and pulling him closer, stealing a short kiss as he rocked against him. He smelled like whiskey and gasoline and everything that Bruce had ever wanted, everything that he couldn’t have. “I’m full of bad ideas, and they tend to turn out pretty well for me.”

 

_I have killed a man and all I know_

Bruce heaved into the toilet as the flashes came back to him. That’s all that they ever were, flashes, like scattered memories that he could never quite put back together. It was always too loud, like static burning in his ears, like acid poured into his brain. He could rarely pull what was happening beyond blood and rain and fire, never able to pull anything cohesive, but this time, there was more to see. More to see than the aftermath, more to see than the attack. A man who had tried to stop him, tried to save him, foolishly put himself in the way of the beast, swatted down like a fly, thrown dead against the wall. 

Bruce had sworn himself to saving lives, taking something like a sacred vow when he became a doctor. And here he was, the monster who was taking them. In the harrowing realizations of what he did when he wasn’t in control, he was forced to his knees as bile forced its way up his throat and into the toilet. 

 

_Is I am on the run and go._

He couldn’t afford friendships. He couldn’t afford roots. He couldn’t afford anything like home. He was a wanted man, on the run for a crime he didn’t commit. A crime that wasn’t a crime at all. Theft of government property, or some bullshit like that. They called him a weapon. They called him a tool. They called the beast inside of him the thing that could win wars and destroy empires. But he ran. He ran with the beast in his veins, ran until his legs couldn't run any longer. Because any sacrifice was worth keeping the Hulk out of the hands of the wrong people. 

 

_Don't wanna call you in the nighttime_

Bruce jolted hard from sleep, jerking upright to the sound of beeping. A warning from the monitor he wore on his wrist, to lower his pulse or risk the beast. His breath was shallow, panicked noises escaping from his lips as he pressed himself back against the headboard. A dream, a dream, he reminded himself, just a dream. He wheezed, squeezing his eyes shut tight as he gripped at his wrist, praying for his heart to stop racing, for the monitor to silence, for the breath to return to his lungs. 

It was Tony’s touch that brought him back down to earth. Arms wrapped tight around him, holding him together, refusing to let him drift into a million little pieces. He held on until the room fell silent again and the beeping stopped. He held on until Bruce’s breathing slowed. He held on until the doctor sunk into his embrace and let him hold tight. He held on until he stopped fighting. 

 

_Don't wanna give you all my pieces_

“Still think I'm supposed to be some sort of hero?” Bruce spat bitterly, tucking his knees tighter into his chest. That witch had taken his mind and played, drawn out the worst in him, provoked the beast and leveled a city. People had died because of him, Tony was bloodied and bruised because of him, catastrophe had rained down because of him. The whole world had at last seen the Hulk for exactly what he was for the first time. 

“Yeah.” Tony murmured, voice soft as he sat down in front of him, legs crossed as he took Bruce’s hands in his, pulling them into his lap. Thumbs grazing over his knuckles as brown eyes met, the plane buzzing beneath them, the small, rhythmic movements calling him back down to earth. “Yeah I do. Because that wasn't Bruce Banner.” 

“That's the Hulk. That's the real Hulk. You might have been able to direct his rage before, but that has always been the real Hulk. A hurricane. A fucking disaster.” He hissed, damning himself for every mistake that led him there. 

“Yeah. But it wasn't Bruce Banner. And who do you think the real hero is?” 

 

_Don't wanna hand you all my trouble_

Bruce shoved him away as the monitor began to beep, having gotten too deep into the heat of the moment, too far gone in the movement of their bodies to remember what would happen if they dared to push such boundaries. The loud beeping brought them back down, and yet, even still, Tony pushed on, holding him tight, wanting to defy such boundaries set by a decade old mistake. He always was a rebel. But Bruce… Bruce was not so reckless. 

“You have to leave me. You have to go. Because you're gonna get tired of this and you're gonna hate me and you _have_ to _go.”_ Bruce spat like fire through ragged sobs. It wasn't as if this hadn't happened a hundred times before, but this stung like fire. He was holding him back, and it was only a matter of time before settling turned to resentment. Still, Tony settled in beside him, wrapping his arms tight around his waist. 

“I'm not going anywhere, Robert Bruce Banner.” Tony whispered, kisses pressing light across his neck, silent vows of complete fidelity within the brush of lips and warmth of breath. “I made my choice a long time ago. And I like my choices. I don't regret a single one.”

 

_Don't wanna give you all my demons_

Depression turns you into a series of nouns, without adjectives, without verbs. The descriptions, the actions, the emotions must have gotten lost somewhere between home and here, a hole-in-the-wall flat in one of the shadier parts of Calcutta. Maybe they got left behind with Betty Ross, maybe they were somewhere in the rubble of that lab, maybe they were hiding somewhere in the Atlantic, or somewhere beneath the floorboards. But he’d spent too many days under this haze of nouns. Bed, shower, socks, coffee, keys, obligations.

It started when the dust began to settle. When the initial shock of what he had become wore off and he was left to live in the aftermath. When he adjusted to this feeling of being a ticking time bomb, without a clear timer, waiting to blow at any given second. When he became a fugitive merely for existing. It settled in his bones until he couldn't remember life before it. It took him over until he could only be certain of one thing; depression was a bitch. 

 

_You'll have to watch me struggle_

He tossed his head back in agony as the control slipped through his fingers. An accident, an explosion, reckless and working against them. It always hurt, no matter how it happened. Whether it be controlled and purposeful or provoked and pushed out of him, the transformation always hurt. It singed like acid in his bones, mind frayed and on fire, flesh splitting open to make way for the beast. 

How much easier it would have been to merely surrender to the pain. How much simpler to let himself go, to let it take him. But he refused. He struggled, fighting a futile fight in a last hoorah, some final attempt at saving his family, at sparing them the wrath of the Hulk. Because when he came, he was coming with a vengeance, and utter disregard for whoever stood in his way. It was a losing battle, but hardly one he could afford not to fight. 

Fists banging against the floor, flesh turning sickly shades of green as sweat dripped down his forehead. Hardly a pretty sight. But, with what was left in him, he glanced up to find Tony. His lips were moving but the voice was drowned beneath static. Still, there he stood, unprepared for the beast to be unleashed against his best efforts. Choking on his own bile, he forced out one word, just as consciousness was leaving his body. 

_“Run.”_

 

_From several rooms away_

He woke up in a haze, but that was nothing new. Every limb was sore, and he was running a fever, just as always. Face up in the snow, eyes met with painfully blue skies. Still, he watched the clouds pass by, just as be always did. It was no different. It was as though nothing had changed. 

Well, he supposed one thing had changed. 

“Come on buddy…” Tony encouraged, pulling him to shaky feet, knees threatening to give out from beneath him. Just as always. But now, there was someone to hold onto. Someone to guide him home, someone to hold him when he could no longer stand on his own two feet. “Let’s get you home.”

 

_But tonight I'll need you to stay_


End file.
